Daggerheart Sold Out in Two Weeks, Has Three-Year Plan in Place

A recent interview with Business Insider revealed just how well Daggerheart did for Critical Role's Darrington Press when it first launched earlier this year. Ed Lopez, Critical Role's chief operating officer, revealed that Daggerheart sold out in two weeks. According to Lopez, Critical Role anticipated that their stock would last a year, but the game was forced to go into reprints in a hurry. "The amount of units that we ordered we thought was going to last us a year, and it lasted us literally two weeks," Lopez said. "It's a great problem, it's a Champagne problem, but it's now changing our view in terms of what this product can be."

Lopez also revealed that Darrington Press has a three-year plan in place for Daggerheart, which includes the already announced Hope & Fear expansion, which adds a new domain and several new classes and backgrounds to the game.

Lopez also spoke about the hires of Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, stating that the two would be working on both Daggerheart and D&D material for Darrington Press. "We really want their creative juices brought to the world of 'Daggerheart.' That being said, we're also doing a bunch of 'D&D' stuff, and who better to bring in than the guys who used to do it?" Lopez said.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet exhaustion is a better and easier mechanical representation of wearing a character down that can't be totally erased (like stress can) with a single long rest...

To my mind, Fatigue (physical exhaustion) and Strife (mental/emotional exhaustion) from Level Up is an even better representation.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And yet exhaustion is a better and easier mechanical representation of wearing a character down that can't be totally erased (like stress can) with a single long rest...

Exhaustion in D&D is neither easier nor better. Even the 2024 exhaustion rules are faffier and less flexible than Daggerheart's (never mind 2014's utter random mess of conditions) and it is clearly bolted on to the side of the system rather than putting pacing yourself significantly under the control of the characters as something that's a normal part of adventuring.

And yeah, the long rest rules in both systems are non-gritty. Daggerheart's at least are consistent with hit points rather than being turned into hamburger being faster to recover from than two exhaustion levels.

 

[Imaro]

Exhaustion in D&D is neither easier nor better. Even the 2024 exhaustion rules are faffier and less flexible than Daggerheart's (never mind 2014's utter random mess of conditions) and it is clearly bolted on to the side of the system rather than putting pacing yourself significantly under the control of the characters as something that's a normal part of adventuring.

And yeah, the long rest rules in both systems are non-gritty. Daggerheart's at least are consistent with hit points rather than being turned into hamburger being faster to recover from than two exhaustion levels.

Neither system supports grimdark well... I get it DH is your favorite but its no better or worse for a grimdark game... neither game is Mork Borg.

 

[mamba]

So here's the part where I ask you to name your top Grimdark novels and watch as other people come in to argue with those choices.

Not my favorite, but definitely grimdark imo The Black Company. When reading it I was wondering why people in that world do not just simply commit suicide to get it over with.

 

[Reynard]

Neither system supports grimdark well... I get it DH is your favorite but its no better or worse for a grimdark game... neither game is Mork Borg.

To be clear, I was never arguing that DH was grimdark. I was arguing against the idea, actually. But I still think the Scar death spiral is somewhere in the neighborhood, and 5E does not have something similar against maybe permanent ability damage but I have never seen it happen in 10 years.

As to what DH is good at is character that feel awesome on the one hand, but combat being chaotic and uncertain with the way the spotlight is handled. I also think by and large, although fewer in number than I would like, monsters in DH are pretty interesting in design overall.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Neither system supports grimdark well... I get it DH is your favorite but its no better or worse for a grimdark game... neither game is Mork Borg.

I never said either was Mork Borg - and Mork Borg is positively uplifting compared to Grey Ranks. Just that D&D is very bad at it while Daggerheart is mediocre.

 

[Imaro]

I never said either was Mork Borg - and Mork Borg is positively uplifting compared to Grey Ranks. Just that D&D is very bad at it while Daggerheart is mediocre.

We get it... you like DH more than D&D... but its ok to admit DH cant do everything.

 

[zakael19]

To be clear, I was never arguing that DH was grimdark. I was arguing against the idea, actually. But I still think the Scar death spiral is somewhere in the neighborhood, and 5E does not have something similar against maybe permanent ability damage but I have never seen it happen in 10 years.

As to what DH is good at is character that feel awesome on the one hand, but combat being chaotic and uncertain with the way the spotlight is handled. I also think by and large, although fewer in number than I would like, monsters in DH are pretty interesting in design overall.

I don’t know if you saw, but Mike Underwood has a new adversary collection out. Looks like it’s filling in some missing gaps for classic fantasy stuff, and some interesting new ability design.

 

[Neonchameleon]

We get it... you like DH more than D&D... but its ok to admit DH cant do everything.

Says the person trying desperately to prove that D&D can do everything as well as Daggerheart.

It's not that Daggerheart is good at this (it doesn't even have real injury rules or a combat death spiral or costs for its easy to access magic), it's that D&D, especially 5e, is actively and even aggressively bad here while Daggerheart is more of an all rounder.